I'm John Baster, spending time with Alex Pollock, a senior fellow at the Mises Institute, author of Finance and Philosophy, Why We're Always Surprised, and co-author of Surprised Again.

However, we're speaking of the Almighty Dollar, and the almighty dollar has rained since the Bretton Woods

after the second war catastrophe. And remains, however, there are challenges. And the challenge comes

from China, the rising power we're told by China all the time, and other currencies, but chiefly

China right now, not the yen, China. Let's speak to the

facts on the ground. The idea here is that maybe there should be a currency that isn't the dollar.

So they mention the Rinminbi. They also mentioned crypto. What can go wrong and why? Let's

begin, first of all, with crypto, because it's so popular to talk of it.

As I understand it, Alex, Mr. Roloff believes that crypto has a future, chiefly its version

called Stablecoin, but that that is not a separate success to the dollar. That's an

augmentation of the dollar? Is that how he sees it?

Well, it's certainly how I see it. The whole point of a stable coin in the vast majority of

stable coins is to tie themselves as closely as possible to the dollar, to be redeemable in dollars, not to be

redeemable in anything else. So I think it's right to say that stable coins, which are the

topic of the day, as you say, and just had a very favorable law get through Congress,

helping them out. They are really just part of the dollar system.

And as dollar, as dollar stable coins, which is most of all stable coins flourish, it really

augments the dominance of the U.S. dollar because they're all tied to the dollar.

And they're not a competing currency.

Now, they may compete, and this is a point I think the book makes very nicely,

they may compete with $100 bills in the underground or informal economies around the world.

You know, there's about $2.3 trillion of Federal Reserve notes,

...